Five for Friday (v. 60)

1) Exciting news! I signed a lease for a new apartment. I will be moving in mid-September to one of the bigger one-bedroom apartments in my current complex. It’s a third-floor apartment, which I’m not stoked about, but does have a fairly nice view (part of it is of the parking lot, but it’s tucked into this corner near a tall tree). My rent will only be increasing by $175, too, so that’s really nice! I’m planning on taking five full days off work while I move, which sounds excessive considering I could literally walk over to my new place in less than five minutes, but I want to take my time with the move. Plus, my apartment is going to need a deep scrubbing after four years (and three pets)! I wish I was moving sooner than September, but maybe it won’t be a million degrees by then? (HAHAHAHAHAHA. I wish.)

2) In less exciting news, this is what my bookshelf looks like today:

No, I haven’t started packing already (although, believe me, I have been tempted). As I was re-shelving books this week, one of my shelves fell over and that’s when I realized that most of the shelves weren’t sitting level anymore. I don’t exactly know what the problem is, but I think it might have to do with the backing. It’s not fitting snugly into the sides of the bookshelf as it should, and it’s caused some of my shelves to not sit perfectly on their anchors anymore. I did a deep dive into hacks for this IKEA bookshelf and found a great forum with lots of comments about what other people have done. One comment suggested using different anchors and screws, ones that will be a lot sturdier, so I ordered everything noted in the comment at Home Depot and picked it up yesterday (curbside). Hopefully, I can get the bookshelf back to order with this hack! I love this bookshelf soooo much and just need it to do what it’s supposed to do.

3) While I had planned to do a culling of my book collection before I moved, this bookshelf fiasco is allowing me to start that process early. I have a stack of maybe 20-30 books that I want to get rid of, and I’m not sure what to do with them. Most places don’t seem to be accepting donations at this time, which is understandable, and I’m not sure if any of the used bookstores around me are buying books right now either. It’s a conundrum! (I was thinking about maybe putting them up on Instagram for people to grab, but perhaps now isn’t the best time to be getting mail from a random person?? Darn you, coronavirus!)

4) I had to deeply involve myself in the world of COVID-19 for a work project this week, and now I feel like I know more about coronavirus testing, treatment, and CDC guidelines than the average person should. It’s rather interesting to read up on it, though. There’s a lot that I didn’t know! I went down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out the purpose behind antibody testing (mostly helpful for research purposes), exactly what a person who has COVID-19 needs to do (ISOLATE!), and the ins and outs of the actual testing procedure (*shudders*). I have to say, I think I might want to get the antibody test after all the research I’ve done! It would be super interesting to find out if I had COVID-19 without knowing about it! (But how crazy that you could be completely asymptomatic but could spread this disease to someone else who could die from it. Science is whack.) (Also, wear your mask!)

5) Things I say to the cats on a daily basis:

• Do you need mama love?
• Is mama your best friend?
• There’s my Lila Bear! (She often hides under the couch or bed for hours at a time, so I always get excited when she emerges for attention.)
• Ellie Bellie, you’re the one. You make my life so much fun! Ellie Bellie, you’re the one for meeee. (To the tune of Sesame Street’s Rubber Duckie.)
• Do you want some yum-yums? (This is what I call treats and I have no idea why.)
• Yes, I’m mama. (I swear Ellie meows “mama” to me. Don’t tell me otherwise!)
• Hi, beautiful!